Despite despair all around the world, the evidence of humanity advancing is more evident in the present than ever. However, counter-forces still exists. The evil forces of certain political systems such as imperialism and fascism and economic systems of capital-based financing are not dead yet. Due to man’s craving for power, violence and exploitation are in the nowhere near end. What is surprising is that the creative endeavour of man has managed to not only survive but also grow despite the situations that seem unfavourable to it.
A chronological analysis of events around the world would be helpful in establishing the historical perspective of the thought on renewal amongst destruction. In the beginning, if the 20th-century people seem to have lost faith in their life. This is justifiable due to the existence of continuous warfare and confusion all around the world. The dramatic changes in political and economic systems around the world had effects not only on the power system and the standard of living of people. It had deeper impacts. The impacts were felt on the hearts of the individuals.
These impacts were reflected in the intellectual fields that man had developed. For example, in the twenties, sciences were classified into simple categories, the scope of history was reduced, the field of philosophy was specialized etc. Throughout the following decade, the lost faith was promised to be restored by communism. However, before the forties, intellectuals around the world lost their confidence in that ideology. It was then that people resented their freedom to dictators. Social equality bought about this manner of blind faith, obedience and control were the considered rational.
Scholars have also tried to connect the ancient notions of spirituality to the current conceptions of social justice. Researchers have found that the teachings of Jesus Christ had much relevance to modern societies. It was found that Christianity had been against Socialistic ideals by remarking it to be atheistic and irreligious doctrine. The church has been an important institution in shaping the societies of the West. However, it has continuously made efforts in removing the separation of groups due to nationalism. Spiritual seekers rarely made statists as their mysticism was regarded as irrational.
This deliberate exclusion of a certain group of people from holding power has been studied through psycho-analysis as an unconscious act. Nationalism degraded rational of man and let unconscious conquer and control his actions. Such psychoanalytic investigations have reduced the dignity of man by lowering his reasoning abilities. Despite understanding this concept, Western man has surrendered himself to the nation-state and its guerrilla warfare.
On the other hand, America never compromised reason over unconscious. Even though cults with strange ideologies have ever been present, empiricism never failed to triumph in the new-found land. The economic depression helped America by allowing experimentation in economic systems. With the institution of New Deal, Americans were encouraged to pace up the rational inquiry. This explains the critiques of American authors over the dramatic theories of socialists. The prejudice held against the Western world by the other side of the Atlantic can also be explained by this.
Thus, American and European thoughts have been related to creativity and despondency respectively. However, today a new Euro-American style has arisen. This has originated from the foundations of a Euro-American culture rich in humanistic and idealistic values. This integration is considered spiritual due to its advancement from despondency to a stabilized empiricism.
This Euro-American has exploited the Asian and African cultures through imperialism and racial contempt. Since humanism is an attitude than a metaphysic, the Atlantic people put efforts to change their ways of life towards these cultures. But this change requires a world-wide revolt. However, these changes that are brought about through resistance in the political sphere might seem to become harmful in the moral spheres of humankind.
This resistance in China can be considered to happen in the aid of moral planes despite the confusion and chaos in the land. The anti-foreign policies are considered resistances with dignity towards the Atlantic world. India is also considered to have such moralistic resistance due to the widespread non-violence preached by Mahatma Gandhi. The nationalism in India has been backed by the lessons from various sacred texts in theory and is believed to have humanistic ideals.
It is commonly held that in the failure of moralized politics would raise socialized politics. Thus, socialism has also considered a type of humanism. However, scholars have differentiated socialism in the West and that in Asia. While the Asians practice socialism based on theology, the Westerners ideologies of socialism are anthropocentric, which provides relatively less stability to the society.
Both types of humanism have their own characteristics and features. In India, socialism is turning towards a more man-centred approach each day. Thus, the dynamics of the humanisms makes it hard for one to predict as to which one is better. To conclude, the time has to answer the question of which humanism would succeed.
Western influence of Indian Culture:
The reason of the split of India and Pakistan is very well acknowledged as the lack of assimilation of Islamic patterns of values and living to the Indian society. Today, however, both the countries, despite their differences in religious basis, are being westernised in a common way. The indigenous impulses and the Gandhian ideologies of self-sufficiency are being replaced by the capitalistic models of the West.
The empiricism of the West has led the thoughts of Indians to secularism and implant in them the idea of oneness and nationalism. Humanism and freedom have been expanded through a newly established social justice of equality. The most common and widespread changes were observed as the increase in accessibility of education, patronization of vernacular art and language, advocation of emancipation of women and the growth of urban centres.
There had been various renaissances in India with only the 19th Century one being highly secularised. The other periods (the Vedic-Aryan, the Buddhist, the Gupta, the Harsha and Vikram Aditya and the Muslim) have strong associations with religious prophets, saints and their teachings. These renaissances have strived to improve the various spheres of human life through philosophies, art and new social values and justice. It can be observed that the pre-British renaissances in India had been like the pre-industrialised renaissances in the West.
The spiritual reformers of the renaissance periods had conceived human beings as children of Gods. Mystics advocated that communal living was a path way for humanity. They had employed several values and practices (which might be superstitious in nature) in the life of man to bring about a progress. The usage of the ideologies on ‘sin and redemption’ has been rare expect in the Islamic culture.
The 19th Century renaissance in India unlike the others, had based itself on nationalism. To bring about administrative unification a common cultural framework was sought after. Hence, the importance laid to spiritual factors such as the spirit of individual’s soul etc. were undermined. Thus, patriotism arose as a common religion of the nation. Fearing that morality which had been the base of spiritual reforms would be put down, many scholars have tried to spiritualise nationalism. But there were strong oppositions. Then came the Gandhian era of politics built upon the doctrine of non-violence.
Indian intellects have now adopted the idea of individualism of the British which has been born from the freedom of self from external factors that controls it. Thus, there exists a centre of weakness in this conception due to the lack of addresses to the inner positivity and content. The Indian personality which has its roots on family origin, traditions etc. has in recent days been considering the aspect of individual freedom. The idea of individualism has influenced the Indian society to such an extent that it is now being conceived as the true essence of democracy.
England through its various reforms such as constitutional changes, capitalisation of agriculture, establishment of a globalised hub for commerce etc. became to be perceived as the ideal type of the Western civilization. Thus, many cultures across the globe aspired to become like them. India wasn’t an expectation. The Indians of the upper strata started to behave as aliens even in their lands, by imitating the British. This trend gradually permutated the other sections of the society until it has hit even the bottom-most part of the society.
The Indians had been considered metaphysic and spiritual by the West in matters of practical affairs. Even though intellect was respected, and logic was practiced even since the Vedic age, the Westerners doubted the success if Indians in material matters of the world. The dignity of man occupying the centre stage of the British administration claimed to isolate the evils of caste in its practice. But this substitution of new values in the place of old evil ones can not be justified as a positive change unless the new values prove to be stable.
Indian thought has always been based on cosmic cyclic law rather than natural law. This is evident even in the judicial system of India. The idea of the necessity of dignity is very much engrained in the judicial patterns of the Indian society. The Indian dignity is like the Christian dignity. The last renaissance of India has advocated individualism to such an extent that it even influences the idea of dignity in the judicial spheres.
It is commonly held that the conception of dignity as it exists now arose from the protests against the British rule and Western influence as well as the preaching of satyagraha. India is yet to attain complete dignity. For that, intellectual dignity must be developed on par with the ethical one.
The Westerners conquest of India has brought in many changes in the Indian society. The first and the most evident one is the spirit of anti-imperialism. Later came the openness of Indian society to cultural exchanges and as a result a greater tolerance. In fact, a faith that the ultimate power will one day be obtained by the oppressed and the depressed sections had been grown among the weaker parts of the Indian society.
The British administration has been one of the shortest advents in the history of India. But it has much larger impact than any other. A deep-multi-layered prospecting is required to understand this relationship. It is time for conscious planning and development of this assimilation for the good of both the societies.
Notes on Indian Culture:
By the time the virtues of the nation-state had become widely recognised and accepted, self-governance has become a part of the Indian political system. While few of the consequences of such a situation have been unleashed through a series of reactions, others appear to be delayed and thus dangerous. These energies must be harnessed for the good of the nation. Through experience, mankind has realised that self-government becomes a challenge due to inadequate response or insufficient wealth. These two factors do not pose a treat to the Indian situation. On deeper analysis, one can find consciousness of the citizens as the building block of self-government. Hence, the elite and the intelligentsia are held with the responsibility to spread positive awareness amongst the masses.
The youth of the country, due to their frustration held against leaders, have been critical towards the political situations. They ‘leftist’ of the youth generally seem to dislike the present state of affairs. In certain other sections of the society, the high costs of living blinds the people of other prejudices in the government. This has become a wound to human dignity.
Certain theories propose that it is because of fatigue of human life. The end of imperialism is said to occur not only because of the freedom struggles of the people in colonies but also a parallel conscience of the imperialists of their fall. The current political situation is such that there is a nucleus and the surroundings that are in the threat of being liquidities. Thus, the theory that fatigue of human communities that resulted from the struggles, is the result of wounding of human dignity can be rejected.
Usually changes in political situations are brought about when the traditional values and attitudes are replaced by new ones. In India, neither nationalism nor patriotism existed in the bloods of the people. Due the invasion of the foreign forces, a fear created such ideas that eventually lead to the freedom movement. These ideologies became so strong that it later became a part of the dharma. In such an attempt to unify the country, the existing cultural values and literatures had lost their significance to a great extent. However, it is not to be forgotten that the middle class has been neglected.
In this process of making nationalism a substitute religion, it is believed that the political leaders have lost their moral roots. In addition, the regional feelings of culture have weakened without strengthening the feeling so nationhood. Attempts through agitation and education to bring in active participation of the middle class have failed. The absence of adequate framework of the national movement has been blamed for the above-mentioned consequences.
Also, the Indian movement has failed to be an intellectual movement. Consciousness arises from the understanding of crises. It is the responsibility of the leaders to help the masses undertake this intellectual conversion. The leaders keen on plunging into political action have forgotten the importance of political theory. This has caused a considerable amount of damage to the culture.
Consciousness among people can be brought about not only through instruments of culture but also through scientific advances. Conveying ideas through culture has its own difficulties because an artist is bound by the rules of art inherited from his forefathers, restricted by his availability and accessibility of tools and depended on his mastery. This combination of the unconscious (rules of artforms) and conscious (ideas that are influenced by conditions of family, community and individual) factors, make up to the complexity of culture as a tool for creation and spreading of consciousness.
The values in a cultural system are established through the balanced coordination and functioning of the instrumentalities of the institutions in a culture. Freedom like duty and reward is one such instrumentality of culture. Thus, freedom irrespective of its magnitude can give every member of a society a sense of achievement.
Today, these institutions have undergone drastic changes. The weakening of self-sufficiency, loss of rigour of joint-family systems and loosening of rigidity of caste system occur parallel to the rise in number of slums and increase in crime rates in the urban areas. This has caused disturbance to the equilibrium state. But a failure to address this problem has had great impacts on the political system of India.
Legally and politically, India still posses a rural framework. The constitution of India has given due importance for the maintenance of the rural character of India which was once considered the country’s backbone. But the reality is that India is becoming more and more urbanized every day. Thus, the motive of the constitution of India with an objective to promote and protect the eternality of the rural areas seems paradoxical to the current cultural situation.
Similarly, the economic ideologies of India are far from the current situations of trade and commerce. Having considered itself a socialist, India is contrarily being highly individualistic and privatised. The freedom of private enterprises has supressed the freedom of individuals. This has also influenced the freedom of vote. Thus the very basis of democracy and socialism has been affected.
Hence, it is the responsibility of the political leaders to bring about awareness among the masses. Any chaotic situation characterized of frustration should be converted to consciousness which could later be made a basis for a stable political situation.
SOURCE: Mukerji D.P. (1958 second edition 2002), Diversities: Essays in Economics, Sociology and
Other Social Problems, Delhi: Manak Publications Pg 177-225, 261-276
